Egil Fujikawa Nes, Norwegian entrepreneur and Co Founder of The Brazil Business, where he writes on “how” to business in Brazil. Here we compare his interview on Talk 2 Brazil on August 2010 to Brazil opportunities and challenges today.

Egil says:

"In The Brazil Business we aim to be very practical with our information. We find many people are writing about why to do business in Brazil these days, we try to write more focused on "how" to do business. Luckily I'm getting a lot of first hand experience with problems that foreign technology companies are experiencing in Brazil trough my position as sale responsible in Connection Consulting."

Listen to the Talk 2 Brazil interview by Tom Reaoch with Edwin Asberg.

Edwin Asberg, Sports Management Specialist .Edwin is originally from a Brazilian town called Holambra which is strongly connected to international culture, more especifically the Dutch one. In 2010 Edwin decided to study for his masters in Europe, and is currently finishing his masters in sport management at the German Sport University, in Cologne, Germany.

Tom Reaoch made a networking presentation to the members of Amcham Uberlandia. Uberlandia is the second largest city in the State of Minas Gerais as well as one of the most important distribution centers in Brazil. Amcham Uberlandia branch was founded in 2006 and now has over 150 member companies with strong presence in the Logistics, Service and Technology industries.

As the World Cup and Olympic Games edge closer, Dave Baxter looks back on his experiences in Brazil from a security perspective.

Is Brazil safe?

Nothing bad has happened to our group. I’m writing from the International Industrial Environment and Sustainability Fair in Sao Paulo, where the audience has just been standing for Brazil’s national anthem after an opening talk. But beyond the sound of this rousing music, that question keeps lurking in my mind.

When Business Reporter was invited to join the Clean and Cool Mission, I had to educate myself about Brazil rather sharpish.

I do have a decent understanding of where the country’s economy is going and some of the issues it faces, as well as what some of its biggest industries are.

I have also covered the work some British companies have been doing in preparation for the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. And I have been busy learning a great deal about international business in Brazil over the last few days.

But I’m a complete novice when it comes to operating in the country, which I had never visited before.

Beyond any insurance or vaccinations I may or may not need (see my second Brazil post for more on this), the thing that really concerned me before catching our flight was whether our group was putting itself at any risk.

How dangerous is Brazil? To me, this is something British firms, tourists and the Brazilian government should all be asking.

Searching for the answers to this troubling question online before my trip brought up some mixed responses. Writing on forums, some people claimed Brazil was calm, friendly and generally pretty safe. Others painted a nightmarish image, where tourists are likely to be mugged, pick pocketed or worse, even in busy parts of cities such as Rio de Janeiro.

This was all rather confusing. Is it safe, or isn’t it? An attempt to clarify the situation by visiting the Foreign Office website for tips on Brazil was not encouraging, with some pretty stark warnings about theft and crime.

Some of the advice people give is the most startling. Foreigners are told to keep their goods close to them, stay in groups, and be careful at night.

They are also advised to give money and possessions up without a fight if confronted, avoid carrying anything they cannot afford to lose and hold somewhere up to 50 Real (somewhere between 15 and 20 pounds) in cash to appease muggers.

The threat may be exaggerated, but one entrepreneur who previously lived in Sao Paulo warned me that bad things can happen, pointing out that few people walk around in the city, making those who do conspicuous to potential criminals.

Brazil is relaxed and has incredibly polite, friendly people (this can actually be an issue for foreign businesses, which I will cover later on), but it also seems a place to be wary.

This arguably applies anywhere, and particularly in cities. You can get mugged in Rio, but this could also happen in Barcelona, Leeds or Dresden. But it never hurts to have your wits about you.

I also briefly wanted to touch on civil unrest because, as I uncomfortably nursed the idea of saving some cash in case I got attacked, it wasn’t helpful to learn that riots had been taking place in both Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo. The sight of large groups of police, including one with what looked like a tear gas gun, did little to reassure me a few days ago.

But looking at the cause of the unrest is interesting. The trouble began with relatively peaceful protests about public services, with taxpayers expecting more for their money. John Doddrel, of the Sao Paulo British Consulate, claimed these protests had been hijacked by a small number of radicals.

In the sense, the country could be in the throes of some useful growing pains. And as Brazil becomes more affluent, this could have an effect on crime. At the same time, questions about safety are being asked as the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympic Games edge ever closer. Hopefully we will be talking about the events themselves, and not any grisly incidents on the side.

SAO PAULO, BRAZIL - The Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) has released its second GBTA BTI Outlook report on Brazil as part of its semiannual series. The report, sponsored by Visa, includes the GBTA BTI, an index of business travel spending which provides a way to distill market performance over a period of time...

A small crop of Brazilian baby retailers are gaining traction--and funding from high-profile investors.

Baby boom? It looks like there is a burgeoning baby e-commerce sector in Brazil.

Most recently, Baby, a Brazil-based online retailer of baby goods, just secured $16.7 million in financing, led by Accel Partners, according to The New York Times.

This announcement comes hot on the heels of more Brazil baby start-up success: Another online retailer, Bebestore, recently raised more than $10 million from London-based venture capital firm Atomico, reported The Times.

In this article, you will be informed about the average rental prices of prime offices in Brazil. We covered the largest and more productive state capitals of the country, located in three Brazilian regions:

Long known as the country of the future, Brazil is now the nation of the moment.

Yet while the country has become the world's sixth-largest economy, reform of the laws and regulations for opening and running businesses don't seem to be improving at the same pace.

Although bureaucracy is obviously not part of Brazil's propaganda, it's a huge part of the country's way of life. And anyone interested in opening a business in the country, Brazilian or outsider, should know this.

According to the World Bank's 2012 annual global report "Doing Business", which evaluates the ease of starting a business, dealing with construction permits, registering property, and paying taxes, Brazil ranked 126th this year out of 183 countries.

On average, it takes 13 procedures and 119 days of work to start a business in Brazil.

And construction permits demand an average 17 procedures and 469 days to finally get authorised.

(3BL Media) Joinville, Brazil - May 10, 2012 – General Motors is pioneering several environmental practices in its construction of a new engine plant in Joinville in southern Brazil. These sustainable features are expected to accredit the plant for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification from the U.S. Green Building Council.

The sustainable initiatives include the first solar energy system in the Brazilian automotive industry. The facility will be the first to introduce a water recycling process using reverse osmosis and employ a new way of treating sewage and wastewater by a wetland process. It will also be the first GM landfill-free plant in the country.

“We are one of the first companies in Brazil to push environmental innovation into the manufacturing space,” said Grace Lieblein, president of GM do Brasil. “Sustainability is in the DNA of our company, and we are incorporating environmental features into our facilities from the ground up.”

Brazil’s automotive industry has been displaying an impressive growth of 2 digits over the last years, totaling revenues of over USD 100 billion by the end of 2010. These figures secured Brazil the fourth position amongst the largest car markets in the world (one position ahead of Germany), and generates 1.5 million jobs.

We are always teaching how to start doing business in Brazil, but just as important as opening a company, it is important to know how to dissolve one. This article will provide you with seven steps to close a company in Brazil.

Readers of Brazil Weekly have been asked to give their opinion about the order of importance of these next big business cities in a poll that ran throughout the past year. Well, here they are, lined up after your interests and voting. So for a minute forget Sao Paulo, Rio and those other 2014 World Cup host cities, as here come Brazil’s next 10 hottest business cities: